Paying It Sideways

One of the more ridiculous suggestions I've heard over the years was to "pay yourself first".

Yeah. Right.

Your landlord (or the mortgage company), the power company, the phone company, the cable company, etc., etc., etc. are all going to wait patiently in line for you to come up with their money because you paid yourself first. Uh-huh.

There is, however, a rather ingenious way of stashing some money away. Remember all those little things you do for yourself, like haircuts and oil changes? Remember how you used to take your clothes to the laundromat before you got your own washer and dryer? What happened to all that money you saved? Slipped right thru your fingers, didn't it?

What I've done (and should have started years ago) is set up three jars: one for laundry, one for haircuts, and one for odd jobs (e.g. oil changes). Since it would cost me $1.25 to do a load of laundry in the laundry room, and would cost me $0.25 to dry*, I simply pay myself $1.50 every time I do a load of laundry. (*I don't dry the load from scratch. I hang everything up in the bathroom and wait until it's almost dry and then put it in the dryer for about 10 minutes.)

Since I got a buzz cut, I don't go to the barber once a month anymore, but I do cut my hair every other week. I calculate that each haircut saves me $4, so I put $4 in the kitty every time I cut my hair.

I haven't costed out (yet!) what I save by doing my own oil changes, but I'm betting it's close to $10. Next time I do an oil change, $10 goes in the jar. Ka-ching!

Sometime in the next little while, I need to sew a new zipper into my lightweight parka. I'll have to ask around to find out how much a seamstress would charge me, and you know where the cash goes. Ka-ching!

Now, what about those times when one is un(der)employed or when money is a bit tight and one has to dip into the fund? That's what IOUs are for. When the money situation improves, simply start redeeming the IOUs.

(Of course, I screwed up by not doing the haircut thing 10 years ago when I first stopped going to the barber. And I could have started paying myself for oil changes back in 1976. And I could have started paying myself for laundry three years ago when I moved into that house and we had a washer and dryer. Oh well, that's tuition in the School of Hard Knocks.)